Portal:Banks

The Banks and Banking Portal

The Bank of England, established in 1694

A bank is a financial institution that accepts deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital markets.

Banks play an important role in financial stability and the economy of a country, so most countries exercise a high degree of regulation over banks. Most countries have institutionalized a system known as fractional-reserve banking, under which banks hold liquid assets equal to only a portion of their current liabilities. In addition to other regulations intended to ensure liquidity, banks are generally subject to minimum capital requirements based on an international set of capital standards, the Basel Accords. (Full article...)

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Selected banking articles

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An automated clearing house (ACH) is a computer-based electronic network for processing transactions, usually domestic low-value payments, between participating financial institutions. It may support both credit transfers and direct debits. The ACH system is designed to process batches of payments containing numerous transactions, and it charges fees low enough to encourage its use for low-value payments. (Full article...)
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Logo of the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) is an independent bureau within the United States Department of the Treasury that was established by the National Currency Act of 1863 and serves to charter, regulate, and supervise all national banks and federal thrift institutions and the federally licensed branches and agencies of foreign banks in the United States.

The head of the agency, the comptroller of the currency, is Jonathan V. Gould, who took office on July 15, 2025. (Full article...)
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An advising bank (also known as a notifying bank) advises a beneficiary (exporter) that a letter of credit (L/C) opened by an issuing bank for an applicant (importer) is available. An advising bank's responsibility is to authenticate the letter of credit issued by the issuer to avoid fraud. The advising bank is not necessarily responsible for the payment of the credit which it advises the beneficiary of. The advising bank is usually located in the beneficiary's country. It can be (1) a branch office of the issuing bank or a correspondent bank, or (2) a bank appointed by the beneficiary. An important point is the beneficiary has to be comfortable with the advising bank.

In case (1), the issuing bank most often sends the L/C through its branch office or correspondent bank to avoid fraud. The branch office or the correspondent bank maintains specimen signature(s) on file where it may counter-check the signature(s) on the L/C, and it has a coding system (a secret test key) to distinguish a genuine L/C from a fraudulent one (authentication). (Full article...)
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The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers (headquarters pictured), the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill Lynch), on September 15, 2008, is often considered the climax of the 2008 financial crisis.

A major worldwide financial crisis centered in the United States took place in 2008. The causes included excessive speculation on property values by both homeowners and financial institutions, leading to the 2000s United States housing bubble. This was exacerbated by predatory lending for subprime mortgages and by deficiencies in regulation. Cash out refinancings had fueled an increase in consumption that could no longer be sustained when home prices declined. The first phase of the crisis was the subprime mortgage crisis, which began in early 2007, as mortgage-backed securities (MBS) tied to U.S. real estate, and a vast web of derivatives linked to those MBS collapsed in value. A liquidity crisis spread to global institutions by mid-2007 and climaxed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which triggered a stock market crash and bank runs in several countries. The crisis exacerbated the Great Recession, a global recession that began in late-2007, as well as the United States bear market of 2007–2009. It was also a contributor to the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis and the euro area crisis.

During the 1990s, the U.S. Congress had passed legislation that intended to expand affordable housing through looser financing rules, and in 1999, parts of the 1933 Banking Act (Glass–Steagall Act) were repealed, enabling institutions to mix low-risk operations, such as commercial banking and insurance, with higher-risk operations such as investment banking and proprietary trading. As the Federal Reserve ("Fed") lowered the federal funds rate from 2000 to 2003, institutions increasingly targeted low-income homebuyers, largely belonging to racial minorities, with high-risk loans; this development went unattended by regulators. As interest rates rose from 2004 to 2006, the cost of mortgages rose and the demand for housing fell; in early 2007, as more U.S. subprime mortgage holders began defaulting on their repayments, lenders went bankrupt, culminating in the bankruptcy of New Century Financial in April. As demand and prices continued to fall, the financial contagion spread to global credit markets by August 2007, and central banks began injecting liquidity. In March 2008, Bear Stearns, the fifth-largest U.S. investment bank, was sold to JPMorgan Chase in a "fire sale" backed by Fed financing. (Full article...)
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Wire transfer, bank transfer, or credit transfer, is a method of electronic funds transfer from one person or entity to another. A wire transfer can be made from one bank account to another bank account, or through a transfer of cash at a cash office.

Different wire transfer systems and operators provide a variety of options relative to the immediacy and finality of settlement and the cost, value, and volume of transactions. Central bank wire transfer systems, such as the Federal Reserve's Fedwire system in the United States, are more likely to be real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems, as they provide the quickest availability of funds. (Full article...)
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Electronic bill payment is a feature of online, mobile and telephone banking, similar in its effect to a giro, allowing a customer of a financial institution to transfer money from their transaction or credit card account to a creditor or vendor such as a public utility, department store or an individual to be credited against a specific account. These payments are typically executed electronically as a direct deposit through a national payment system, operated by the banks or in conjunction with the government. Payment is typically initiated by the payer but can also be set up as a direct debit.

In addition to the bill payment facility, most banks will also offer various features with their electronic bill payment systems. These include the ability to schedule payments in advance to be made on a specified date (convenient for installments such as mortgage and support payments), to save the biller information for reuse at a future time and various options for searching the recent payment history. In many cases the payment data can also be downloaded and posted directly into the customer's accounting or personal finance software. (Full article...)
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Bank regulation and supervision refers to a form of financial regulation which subjects banks to certain requirements, restrictions and guidelines, enforced by a financial supervisory authority or supervisor, with semantic variations across jurisdictions. By and large, bank regulation and supervision aims at ensuring the stability of the banking sector and at fostering transparency between banks and the individuals and other counterparts with whom they conduct business.

Its main component is prudential regulation and supervision, whose aim is to ensure that banks are viable and resilient ("safe and sound") so as to reduce the likelihood and impact of bank failures that may trigger systemic risk. Prudential regulation and supervision requires banks to control risks and to hold adequate capital as defined by capital requirements and add liquidity requirements, the imposition of concentration risk (or large exposures) limits, and related reporting and public disclosure requirements and supervisory controls and processes. Other components include supervision aimed at enforcing financial consumer protection, sometimes also referred to as conduct-of-business (or simply "conduct") regulation and supervision of banks, and anti–money laundering supervision that aims to ensure banks implement the applicable AML/CFT framework. Deposit insurance and resolution authority are also parts of the bank regulatory and supervisory framework. Bank (prudential) supervision is a form of "microprudential" policy to the extent it applies to individual credit institutions, as opposed to macroprudential regulation intended at the financial system as a whole. (Full article...)
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A deposit account is a bank account maintained by a financial institution in which a customer can deposit and withdraw money. Deposit accounts can be savings accounts, current accounts or any of several other types of accounts explained below.

Transactions on deposit accounts are recorded in a bank's books, and the resulting balance is recorded as a liability of the bank and represents an amount owed by the bank to the customer. In other words, the banker-customer (depositor) relationship is one of debtor-creditor. Some banks charge fees for transactions on a customer's account. Additionally, some banks pay customers interest on their account balances. (Full article...)
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Asset quality is an evaluation of asset to measure the credit risk associated with it. (Full article...)
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A merchant bank is historically a bank dealing in commercial loans and investment. In modern British usage, it is the same as an investment bank. Merchant banks were the first modern banks and evolved from medieval merchants who traded in commodities, particularly cloth merchants. Historically, merchant banks' purpose was to facilitate or finance the production and trade of commodities, hence the name merchant. Few banks today restrict their activities to such a narrow scope.

In modern usage in the United States, the term additionally has taken on a more narrow meaning, and refers to a financial institution providing capital to companies in form of share ownership instead of loans. A merchant bank also provides advice on corporate matters to the firms in which they invest. (Full article...)

Selected banks

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ABN AMRO Bank N.V. is the third-largest Dutch bank, with headquarters in Amsterdam. It was initially formed in 1991 by merger of the two prior Dutch banks that form its name, Algemene Bank Nederland (ABN) and Amsterdamsche en Rotterdamsche Bank (AMRO Bank).

Following aggressive international expansion, ABN AMRO was acquired and broken up in 2007–2008 by a consortium of European banks, including Fortis which intended to take over its formed operations in the Benelux region. Fortis came under stress in the autumn of 2008, and was in turn broken up into separate national entities; the Dutch operations, namely Fortis Bank Nederland and the former ABN AMRO activities that Fortis had planned to absorb, were nationalized, restructured, and renamed ABN AMRO in mid-2010. On 20 November 2015, the Dutch government publicly re-listed the company through an IPO and sold 20 percent of the shares to the public. (Full article...)
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Danske Bank A/S (pronounced [ˈtænˀskə ˈpɑŋˀk], lit. 'Danish Bank') is a Danish multinational banking and financial services corporation. Headquartered in Copenhagen, it is the largest bank in Denmark and a major retail bank in the northern European region with over 5 million retail customers.

As of 2020, Danske Bank's largest shareholder with 21% of the share capital was A.P. Moller Holding [da], the investment holding company of the Maersk family. (Full article...)
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HSBC Holdings plc (Chinese: 滙豐; lit. 'focus of wealth') is a British universal bank and financial services group headquartered in London, England, with historical and business links to East Asia and a multinational footprint. According to S&P Global's April 2026 report, HSBC is Europe's 2nd largest bank by assets, with $3.212 trillion in assets. This also puts it as the 8th largest bank in the world by total assets behind Bank of America, and the 3rd largest non-state owned bank in the world.

HSBC traces its origins to a hong trading house in British Hong Kong. The bank was established in 1865 in Hong Kong and opened branches in Shanghai in the same year. It was formally incorporated in 1866 as the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation. In 1991, the current parent company, HSBC Holdings plc, was established in London and the historic Hong Kong–based bank from which the group took its name became that entity's wholly owned subsidiary. The following year (1992), HSBC took over Midland Bank, becoming one of the largest domestic banks in the United Kingdom. (Full article...)
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Raiffeisen Bank International (RBI) is a key entity of the decentralized Raiffeisen Banking Group in Austria, acting both as the latter's domestic central financial entity and as the holding company for all the group's operations outside of Austria. The bank is listed on the Wiener Börse. Its major shareholders are the Raiffeisen Banking Group's eight regional banks (Raiffeisen-Landesbanken), which are bound by a shareholders' agreement and together hold a majority of RBI's equity.

RBI was established in 2010 as a subsidiary of Raiffeisen Zentralbank (RZB), and absorbed the latter in March 2017 through a reverse takeover. Since then, it has been designated as a Significant Institution under European Banking Supervision, and as a consequence is directly supervised by the European Central Bank. (Full article...)
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The Cedar in Amsterdam's neighborhood Bijlmermeer, ING's headquarters since 2020

The ING Group (Dutch: ING Groep N.V.) is a Dutch multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Amsterdam. Its primary businesses are retail banking, direct banking, commercial banking, investment banking, wholesale banking, private banking, and asset management. With total assets of €1,316 billion (as of March 2026), it consistently ranks among the largest banks globally.

The ING is the Dutch member of the Inter-Alpha Group of Banks, a co-operative consortium of 11 prominent European banks. ING Bank has been a member in the list of global systemically important banks since the list was created in 2011. It has been designated as a Significant Institution since the entry into force of European Banking Supervision in late 2014, and as a consequence is directly supervised by the European Central Bank. (Full article...)
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Headquarters at 200 West Street in Manhattan

The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. (/sæks/ SAKS) is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company. Founded in 1869, Goldman Sachs is headquartered in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City, with regional offices in many international financial centers. Goldman Sachs is one of the largest investment banks in the world by revenue and is ranked 32nd on the Fortune 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue. In the Forbes Global 2000 of 2025, Goldman Sachs ranked 20th. It is considered a systemically important financial institution by the Financial Stability Board.

Goldman Sachs offers services in investment banking (advisory for mergers and acquisitions and restructuring), securities underwriting, prime brokerage, asset management, and wealth management. It is a market maker for many types of financial products and provides clearing and custodian bank services. It operates private-equity funds and hedge funds. It structures complex and tailor-made financial products. It also owns Goldman Sachs Bank USA, a direct bank. It trades both on behalf of its clients (flow trading) and for its own account (proprietary trading). The company invests in and arranges financing for startups, and in many cases gets additional business as bookrunner when the companies launch initial public offerings. (Full article...)
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The Laurentian Bank of Canada (LBC; French: Banque Laurentienne du Canada) is a Schedule 1 bank that operates primarily in the province of Quebec, with commercial and business banking offices located in Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, and Nova Scotia. LBC's Institution Number (or routing number) is 039.

The institution was established as the Montreal City and District Savings Bank in 1846. The bank's shares were publicly listed on the Montreal Stock Exchange in 1965 and the Toronto Stock Exchange in 1983. In 1987, the institution was renamed the Laurentian Bank of Canada. (Full article...)
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Shinhan Bank Co., Ltd. (Korean: 신한은행) is a South Korean bank headquartered in Seoul. It was founded under this name in 1982, but through its merger with Chohung Bank in 2006, traces its origins to the Hanseong Bank (est. 1897), one of the first banks to be established in Korea. It is part of the Shinhan Financial Group, along with Jeju Bank.
As of 2016^[update], Shinhan Bank had total assets of ₩298.945 trillion (equivalent to ₩363.933 trillion or US$255.97 billion in 2025)^[1], total deposits of ₩221.047 trillion (equivalent to ₩269.101 trillion or US$189.27 billion in 2025)^[1] and loans of ₩212.228 trillion (equivalent to ₩258.365 trillion or US$181.719 billion in 2025)^[1]. Shinhan Bank is the main subsidiary of Shinhan Financial Group (SFG). (Full article...)
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The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC; Chinese: 中国工商银行) is a Chinese partially state-owned multinational banking and financial services corporation headquartered in Beijing, China. It is the largest of the "big four" banks in China, and the largest bank in the world by total assets. ICBC was created on 4 January 1974 from what were then the commercial banking operations of the People's Bank of China. ICBC is majority-owned by the Chinese government and has remained so after its landmark initial public offering in 2006. As end of 2021, ICBC shareholders included Central Huijin Investment (34.7 percent), the Chinese Ministry of Finance (31.1 percent), the National Council for Social Security Fund (3.5 percent), adding up to 69.3 percent under the ultimate control of the Ministry of Finance.

ICBC became the world's largest bank by total assets in 2012 (based on year-end balance sheet) and has kept this rank ever since. In 2015, ICBC ranked 1st on World Brand Lab's Top 500 Most Valuable Chinese Brands with a brand value of 261,576 million yuan. The same year, it was ranked first on the Forbes Global 2000 list of the world's top public companies. On 31 December 2022, it was the third-largest bank in the world by market capitalization at $211 billion. It is one of the most profitable companies in the world, ranking fourth according to Forbes in 2022. It has been designated a systemically important bank by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) since the start of the FSB's listing. (Full article...)
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Headquarters at One Churchill Place in Canary Wharf, London

Barclays PLC (/ˈbɑːrkliz/, occasionally /-leɪz/) is a British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, England. Barclays operates as five divisions: the UK Consumer Bank, UK Corporate Bank, Private Bank and Wealth Management (PBWM), Investment Bank, and the US Consumer Bank.

Barclays traces its origins to the goldsmith banking business established in the City of London in 1690 by Quakers John Freame and Thomas Gould. James Barclay became a partner in the business in 1736. In 1896, twelve banks in London and the English provinces, including Goslings Bank, Backhouse's Bank and Gurney, Peckover and Company, united as a joint-stock bank under the name Barclays and Co. Over the following decades, Barclays expanded to become a nationwide bank. In 1967, Barclays deployed the world's first cash dispenser. Barclays has made numerous corporate acquisitions, including of London, Provincial and South Western Bank in 1918, British Linen Bank in 1919, Mercantile Credit in 1975, the Woolwich in 2000 and the North American operations of Lehman Brothers in 2008. (Full article...)

Did you know...

... that Shaktikanta Das qualified with a degree in history, yet rose to lead India's central bank?

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Selected images

Image 1Brechin (from Standard Bank of Canada)
Image 2An HSBC Bank Canada branch in Toronto, 2008 (from HSBC Bank Canada)
Image 3The 1909 Standard Bank Building at 15 King Street West in Toronto, designed by Darling and Pearson. It was demolished in 1965. (from Standard Bank of Canada)
Image 4Commerce Tower in Montreal, designed by Peter Dickinson, was begun for the Bank of Commerce but was not completed until after the merger with the Imperial Bank. (from Canadian Bank of Commerce)
Image 5Citibank, The People's Trust Company Building, Brooklyn, New York City. (from Bank)
Image 6Former branch in Sortavala, now in Russia (from Bank of Finland)
Image 7An office of Nordea bank in Mariehamn, Åland (from Bank)
Image 8Sealing of the Bank of England Charter (1694), by Lady Jane Lindsay, 1905. (from Bank)
Image 9This 15th-century painting depicts money-dealers at a banca (bench) during the Cleansing of the Temple. (from Bank)
Image 10Branch of Nepal Bank in Pokhara, Western Nepal. (from Bank)
Image 11An HSBC Bank Canada branch in Richmond Hill, Ontario, 2014 (from HSBC Bank Canada)
Image 12Sederholm House in Helsinki, the Bank's seat from 1819 to 1824 (from Bank of Finland)
Image 13Rotterdam head office [nl], later repurposed as a shopping center (from AMRO Bank)
Image 14Global headquarters of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel (from Bank)
Image 15The HSBC Canada Building in Vancouver housed the headquarters for HSBC's Canadian subsidiary (from HSBC Bank Canada)
Image 16Former branch in Oulu (from Bank of Finland)
Image 17From 1867 to 1890 the bank was headquartered at 59 Yonge Street. This was the 1852 Ross, Mitchell & Co. Building, designed by William Thomas. (from Canadian Bank of Commerce)
Image 18Former branch in Turku (from Bank of Finland)
Image 19Former branch in Kotka (from Bank of Finland)
Image 20ATM Al-Rajhi Bank (from Bank)
Image 21Former branch [fi] in Tampere (from Bank of Finland)
Image 22Government Palace in Helsinki, the Bank's home from 1824 until relocation to its current building in 1883 (from Bank of Finland)
Image 23Amsterdam head office before 1987, lately headquarters of Booking.com (from AMRO Bank)
Image 24A former building society, now a modern retail bank in Leeds, West Yorkshire. (from Bank)
Image 25SEB main building in Tallinn, Estonia (from Bank)
Image 26Large door to an old bank vault. (from Bank)
Image 27An American bank in Maryland. (from Bank)
Image 28Statesman Jan van den Brink was instrumental in the merger of Amsterdamsche Bank and Rotterdamsche Bank in 1964, and remained on the bank's board until 1978 (from AMRO Bank)
Image 29Bank of Finland strong box which moved to Helsinki with the bank when it relocated from Turku (from Bank of Finland)
Image 30An illustration of Northern National Bank as advertized in a 1921 book highlighting the opportunities available in Toledo, Ohio (from Bank)
Image 31National Copper Bank, Salt Lake City 1911 (from Bank)
Image 32OTP Bank in Prešov (Slovakia) (from Bank)
Image 33The bank's 1890 head office at 23 King Street West, designed by Richard Alfred Waite. It was demolished in 1928 to make way for the bank's new headquarters. (from Canadian Bank of Commerce)
Image 34Markham (from Standard Bank of Canada)
Image 35Suburban bank branch (from Bank)
Image 36Helsinki head office extension designed by Harry W. Schreck [fi] in the late 1950s (from Bank of Finland)
Image 37Beethovenstraat branch in Amsterdam, 1970 (from AMRO Bank)
Image 38Banco de Venezuela in Coro. (from Bank)
Image 39A Banco do Brasil office in São Paulo, Brazil, the bank is the largest financial institution in Brazil and Latin America. (from Bank)
Image 40National Bank of the Republic, Salt Lake City 1908 (from Bank)
Image 41An interior of a branch of National Westminster Bank on Castle Street, Liverpool (from Bank)
Image 42Former branch in Viipuri, now Vyborg, Russia (from Bank of Finland)
Image 43Interior of the Helsinki Branch of the Vyborg-Bank [fi] in the 1910s (from Bank)
Image 44The Bank's current head office completed in 1883, with statue of J.V. Snellman by sculptor Emil Wikström in front (from Bank of Finland)
Image 45Sudbury (from Standard Bank of Canada)